A pendant is a loose-hanging piece of jewellery

Jewellery

Jewellery or jewelry is a form of personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets.With some exceptions, such as medical alert bracelets or military dog tags, jewellery normally differs from other items of personal adornment in that it has no other purpose than to...

, generally attached by a small loop to a necklace

Necklace

A necklace is an article of jewellery which is worn around the neck. Necklaces are frequently formed from a metal jewellery chain. Others are woven or manufactured from cloth using string or twine....

, when the ensemble may be known as a "pendant necklace". A pendant earring

Earring

Common locations for piercings, other than the earlobe, include the rook, tragus, and across the helix . The simple term "ear piercing" usually refers to an earlobe piercing, whereas piercings in the upper part of the external ear are often referred to as "cartilage piercings"...

 is an earring with a piece hanging down. In modern French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 "pendant" is the gerund

Gerund

In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....

 form of “hanging” (also meaning “during”). Pendants can have several functions, which may be combined:

• Ornamentation
  Fashion
  Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
  
  
• Identification
  Identification
  Identification or Identify may refer to:* Body identification* Combat Identification* Eyewitness identification* Forensic identification* Gender identity* Hazard Identification...
  
   (i.e. religious symbol
  Symbol
  A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
  
  s, sexual symbols, symbols of rock bands)
• Protection
  Safety
  Safety is the state of being "safe" , the condition of being protected against physical, social, spiritual, financial, political, emotional, occupational, psychological, educational or other types or consequences of failure, damage, error, accidents, harm or any other event which could be...
  
   (i.e. amulet
  Amulet
  An amulet, similar to a talisman , is any object intended to bring good luck or protection to its owner.Potential amulets include gems, especially engraved gems, statues, coins, drawings, pendants, rings, plants and animals; even words said in certain occasions—for example: vade retro satana—, to...
  
  s, religious symbols)
• Self-affirmation
  Self-affirmation
  The theory of self-affirmation is a psychological theory that was first proposed by Claude Steele with the premise that people are motivated to maintain the integrity of the self. The ultimate goal of the self is to protect an image of its self-integrity, morality and adequacy...
  
   (i.e. initials, names)
• Ostentation (i.e. jewels
  Gemstone
  A gemstone or gem is a piece of mineral, which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments...
  
  ).
• Award
  Award
  An award is something given to a person or a group of people to recognize excellence in a certain field; a certificate of excellence. Awards are often signifiedby trophies, titles, certificates, commemorative plaques, medals, badges, pins, or ribbons...
  
   (i.e. Scouting Ireland Chief Scout's Award
  Scouting Ireland Chief Scout's Award
  The Chief Scout's Award is the highest award for Scouts in Scouting Ireland. The precise criteria for the Chief Scout's Award in Scouting Ireland as a result of the merger of CSI and SAI are unclear at present . It is the final step in the personal progressive scheme of the former CSI...
  
  , Order of CúChulainn
  Order of CúChulainn
  -History:It was introduced in 2004 to replace Scouting Ireland 's Order of the Silver Wolfhound and the equivalent award of Scouting Ireland S.A.I., the Order of the Silver Elk...
  
  )

The many specialized types of pendants include locket

Locket

A locket is a pendant that opens to reveal a space used for storing a photograph or other small item such as a curl of hair. Lockets are usually given to loved ones on holidays such as Valentine's Day and occasions such as Christenings, weddings and, most noticeably during the Victorian Age,...

s which open, often to reveal an image, and pendilia

Pendilia

Pendilia are pendant or dangling ornaments for a piece of metalwork such as a crown, votive crown, crux gemmata, or kamelaukion, and are a feature of Early Medieval goldsmith work...

, which hang from larger objects of metalwork.

Other meanings

• A teach pendant is a portable control device used in industrial robotics.
• A cable pendant is one of a series of cables that is horizontally suspended across a flight deck of aircraft carrier
  Aircraft carrier
  An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
  
  s for aircraft to land by catching with tailhook.
• A nautical pendant is a length of cable
  Cable
  A cable is two or more wires running side by side and bonded, twisted or braided together to form a single assembly. In mechanics cables, otherwise known as wire ropes, are used for lifting, hauling and towing or conveying force through tension. In electrical engineering cables are used to carry...
  
   or rope
  Rope
  A rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength...
  
  , usually of a short length, that has eyes or fittings, or both, at the ends for attachment to vessels and bollard
  Bollard
  A bollard is a short vertical post. Originally it meant a post used on a ship or a quay, principally for mooring. The word now also describes a variety of structures to control or direct road traffic, such as posts arranged in a line to obstruct the passage of motor vehicles...
  
  s or buoy
  Buoy
  A buoy is a floating device that can have many different purposes. It can be anchored or allowed to drift. The word, of Old French or Middle Dutch origin, is now most commonly in UK English, although some orthoepists have traditionally prescribed the pronunciation...
  
  s.
• A pendant is a common item used in hypnosis.
• Pendant vertex, a vertex whose neighbourhood
  Neighbourhood (graph theory)
  In graph theory, an adjacent vertex of a vertex v in a graph is a vertex that is connected to v by an edge. The neighbourhood of a vertex v in a graph G is the induced subgraph of G consisting of all vertices adjacent to v and all edges connecting two such vertices. For example, the image shows a...
  
   contains exactly one vertex
• A hanging light fitting.
• Pendant objects are two or more aesthetic objects (usually art pieces such as paintings or sculptures) made to be perceived as a set.